In his State of the Union Address, President Obama said that one of the best “investments we can
make in a child’s life is a high quality education.”

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council,
demurred: “Mr. President, you neglected to mention the very best
investment in a child’s life – a married mom and dad.”

He cited a new Harvard study proving that children of
married parents are much more likely to be able to move up the income ladder
than those of single parents. An intact
family is better off financially than one that is broken. Its children do
better in school and graduate college in greater numbers than those from
non-intact homes.

Obama asserted that “the
best measure of opportunity is access to a good job.” Perkins responded, “No, Mr. President,
it is a married mom and dad.

He
added, “President Obama’s remarks
didn’t address a key reason our economy is just bumping along – the
continued dissolution of the American family.
Only 45 percent of our 17-year-old children have grown up in an intact
married family. The mother and father of the remaining 55 percent have at some
time rejected each other as husband and wife.”

Either
they never married or they divorced.
Unwed births are now 41 percent of all births, and America’s
divorce rate is the highest of any industrialized nation.

Children
of broken homes are three times as likely as those from intact homes to be
expelled from school or to get pregnant as teenagers. They are six times more apt to live in
poverty and 12 times more likely to be incarcerated, according to the Heritage
Foundation.

Unfortunately,
federal programs exacerbate these differences.
For example if an unmarried couple has children, she is eligible for
about $25,000 of benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps, the Earned Income Tax
Credit and housing subsidies. Obamacare
similarly skews benefits to the unmarried, not married couples. If the couple
marries, they lose those benefits.

No
wonder the percentage of adults who are married has plunged from 67 percent in
1960 to only 48 percent today.

The
President was correct in asserting that “corporate profits and stock
prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better.
But average wages have barely budged.
Inequality has deepened. Upward
mobility has stalled.”

He
called once again for a higher minimum wage, saying that “no one who
works full-time should ever have to raise a family in poverty.” He noted that in the last year five states
have raised their minimum wage above the U.S. level of $7.25 an hour. In December, fast-food workers walked off
their jobs in a day of strikes for better pay.

Two-thirds of Americans agree with an
increase in the minimum, as do I. But the President was silly to pledge raising
the minimum of corporations with federal contracts, virtually all of whom pay
far above the minimum.

I
also applaud Obama’s call “to fix our
broken immigration system.” He said,” When people come here to
fulfill their dreams – to study, invent and contribute to our culture
– they make our country a more attractive place for businesses to locate
and create jobs for everyone.”

Even
Republicans seem open to legalizing the nation’s 11 million undocumented
aliens.

Predictably,
Obama defended his Affordable Care Act which he said
is about “the peace of mind that if misfortune strikes, you don’t
have to lose everything.” He
mentioned Amanda Shelley, a physician’s assistant who had to undergo
surgery six days after she signed up.

However,
Obamacare undermines religious freedom.
All employers must offer not only free contraceptives but also
sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs – even Catholic hospitals and
universities. Jane Belford, Chancellor
of the Archdiocese of Washington, charges, “We must violate our religious
beliefs or face crippling fines and penalties of at least $4.2 million a
year.”

Cardinal
Timothy Dolan of New York told CBS: “This is about religious
liberty. The President says it is about
women’s health. This is about religious freedom, not about
contraception.”

Fortunately,
the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving two companies whose
owners object on grounds of religious liberty. And dozens of additional cases
are in the courts.

As
Tony Perkins puts it, “Mr. President, it is not an American value to
trample someone else’ conscience.
It is not an American value to use the federal government to undermine
the will of the people in states that believe marriage is between a man and a
woman and that children do best with a mom and a dad.”